Will HISD trustees see the light?

HISD should set a policy that prohibits discriminatory mascots and school names.

Copyright 2013: Houston Chronicle

Updated 7:21 am, Thursday, December 12, 2013

Photo: Eric Christian Smith, Freelance

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Lamar cheerleaders (left to right) Moriah Sells, Lauren Morgan and Payton Hernandez dance before the Redskins' game against the Brenham Cubs, Friday at Delmar Stadium.

Lamar cheerleaders (left to right) Moriah Sells, Lauren Morgan and Payton Hernandez dance before the Redskins' game against the Brenham Cubs, Friday at Delmar Stadium.

Photo: Eric Christian Smith, Freelance

Will HISD trustees see the light?

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

No members of the HISD board discussed racial mascots at their Monday meeting, so we will.

Today, the board votes on a change to board policy that will require school symbols to respect cultural differences, values and attitudes.

It is a bland way of saying that people are not objects. They should not be bandied around like some puppet on a string for the entertainment of high school students. Native American tribes suffered a genocide at the hands of Americans, and these First Nations deserve something more than to be treated as an unwilling symbol of a sports team. HISD would not allow "The Jews" as a mascot, and the board should extend the same respect for "The Redskins" and similar exploitive names. Tradition is important, but it should not trump the values of an inclusive society.

This debate is well-worn territory, yet it feels like the opponents to this change all watched the same episode of the television show "Community," in which a community college tried to avoid controversy by changing its mascot to "The Human Beings." It is funny in the show, but a slippery slope argument about generic, meaningless mascots isn't very convincing. After all, we're already there. Teams across the nation share similar mascot names that rob Native Americans of their personal agency. There is nothing unique about the Lamar Redskins, except the irony of the school being named for a man who tried to exterminate all the Native American tribes in Texas. By changing these names we can not only show some decency to a people who have suffered at the bayonet end of Manifest Destiny, but also choose mascots that uniquely and specifically represent their schools.

Now Playing:

Anna Eastman, the school board president, has said that she wished people would show a similar passion about the fact that HISD has kids who can't read. The fact of the matter is that core education issues are hard and mascots are easy. Fixing fundamentals requires tackling budgets, student home lives, unionized teachers, state guidelines, employee pay and all sorts of education philosophy. Changing a mascot named after a people who had no voice in that selection is an easy up or down vote.

Times change, and institutions should keep up. It takes very little effort or money to set guidelines that ensure Houston's schools do not slap racial slurs on football uniforms or name buildings after defenders of slavery. HISD has many challenges ahead of it, but there is nothing challenging about this vote.